hc_bingo: Misguided ghost
title: Misguided ghost
characters: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Gabe Saporta, Travis McCoy, Joe Trohman
pov: 3rd
rating: PG13?
prompt: ghosts and hauntings
summary: Pete moves in a new house but his 'roommate' doesn't quite want him
disclaimer: as true as Casper
A/N:fucking.FINALLY. I finished it x_X how I hate writer's blocks...
The house was rather big for only one person, Pete had to admit it, but he fell in love with it at first sight: two stories plus attic, neat porch up front, wide garden around for Hemingway. Yes, he’ll live there no matter what, throwing parties while waiting for the person who will dare to spend the rest of their life with him in that same house, till death tears them apart.
The professionally cordial woman of the estate agency was waiting for him at the door; he jogged his way towards her and they shook hands before entering. The realtor illustrated Pete all the features of the house, from the spacious and light rooms to the quality of the building materials and also the facilities in the neighborhood.
It was already furnished, Pete noticed, and it wasn’t half as bad as what he imagined: he thought there were more granny-like cupboards and doilies everywhere, but it was pretty modern yet classic -It was built in the Seventies, the agent said, but it’s in step with the times inside- and Pete had already eyed a vinyl player, he couldn’t wait to check if it still worked once he’d moved in.
“I take it,” Pete affirmed with a broad smile, taking the contract the agent was handing him and signing it without a second thought.
~°~
The following afternoon Pete parked his ratty car in front of his new home, starting to unload the few things he brought to get familiar with the house before moving in for good. He’s already planned it: pillow, sheets, notebook, bass, vinyls and dog for a week, roaming the house to make a list of what to save and what to get rid of before forcing his friends to help him move the rest of his stuff in, and finally throwing an inauguration party.
With the keys the estate agent gave him the previous day, Pete opened the white front door and got in, Hemingway trotting ahead of him. Leaving his duffel bag and bass case against the cabinet at the entrance, he inhaled deeply and looked around satisfied before entering the kitchen; he noticed just in that moment that the fridge was obviously empty and ordered Hemingway not to destroy everything while he was away.
Running outside, he took the car to drive to the supermarket down the opposite street.
~°~
He watched the black haired man rushing outside, while the dog woofed lazily at the closing door before turning to him, head cocked to the side.
He disappeared.
~°~
Pete opened the door as quickly as he could with an arm full of groceries (beer, icecream, poptarts, milk, noodles, dog food), breathing in relief when he saw Hemingway hadn’t thrown the whole house down.
“Good boy, Hemmy,” he patted the dog’s head and put the grocery bag on the kitchen table. He took his hoodie off and ungraciously abandoned it on the chair back before putting the food away, but a single bark made him turn.
“What, Hem?” Pete asked the dog, who was looking at the table from the door. The man looked as well and noticed how his hoodie was now neatly arranged on the chair: a bit baffled, he shrugged it off, thinking he may have had an OCD moment while taking the hoodie off instead of throwing it somewhere like he always does, without remembering it.
Pete soon forgot about the hoodie, though, too busy opening and closing every cupboard present in the kitchen, checking every furniture in the living room, testing the couch and the vinyl player (really comfy the first, still in perfect status the second), inspecting every room upstairs.
Between the bathroom and one of the spare rooms there was the door to the attic, that Pete was pretty sure to remember the estate agent closed after she explained what was that for and showed him the narrow stairs.
Pete gulped loudly and flicked the light switch on, carefully taking a step a time to get in the attic; once there, he couldn’t help but wonder who was the previous owner of the house and why they left some boxes behind. The boxes were exactly under the round window Pete wanted to open, so he had to move them a bit to the side, but when he reached for the dark sheet that covered the window he made a small box fall with a clanking sound. Jumping for the sudden noise, Pete looked suspiciously at the contents that scattered on the floor: a pair of drum sticks, guitar picks and even a trumpet were now spread on the dusty wooden boards, the brass instrument catching the few rays of the sun and reflecting some purple sparkles of the metal. Pete picked it up and chuckled, who the hell plays a purple trumpet?
Diligently (for once) tidying up and putting the box back in its place, Pete promised himself to check the content of the boxes in case there was something useful, since nobody had reclaimed them before the house was sold. He called it a day and returned in the living room, setting the couch as makeshift bed: it wasn’t only a question of hygiene that he didn’t sleep in one of the bedrooms, that first night…it was that the upper floor was damn cold, in particular the master bedroom, as he noticed during his inspection. Snuggling under his washed out blanket and getting more comfortable on the couch, he faced the TV, zapping idly before eventually falling asleep, lulled by Hemingway’s soft snoring below him.
~°~
He stared at the intruder all night with hard eyes: it was irritating how messy that man was, leaving things out of place, let alone that dog of his that was smearing the whole house with its icky drool.
He eventually rolled his eyes and turned the TV off, then stalked away.
~°~
Pete woke up fairly early, surprised for having been able to sleep so well and for so long, compared to his usual insomniac nights, and surprised to find the TV off.
Weird…maybe I switched it off in my sleep or it has some timer still set…Oh well.
Pete shrugged it off once again, unfazed by those random events, and started his day with a bunch of poptarts and a gulp of milk directly from the bottle. He couldn’t shake off, though, the sensation that someone had been playing the piano in the corner during the night: maybe it was only a dream, someone with a hat showing his back to Pete and playing a really sad song, but it was really realistic.
“Ok let’s do it,” he said out loud to the house, ready to take a new tour and put the things he didn’t like or looked too old to be still good to the side. Armed with his notepad, where he very simply scribbled ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on top separated by a vertical line all the way to the end of the page, he started from the kitchen: he dared to say it was all good, only the cupboards needed some elbow oil to get rid of the dust and a passage with the screwdriver to secure the doors, and a coat of paint on the walls wouldn’t hurt. The flowery curtains must disappear though…
Moving to the living room, Pete’s eyes immediately locked on the vinyl player, that was a must-stay. He already tested the sofa and while it was very comfortable, he really didn’t like the paisley pattern, so he should at least buy a sofa cover or something. The TV looked quite old and it definitely couldn’t compare with the modern LCD screen he still had in his apartment, so yeah, he already found a more than good substitute.
Scanning the rest of the room, Pete spotted the small piano of his dream in the corner and made his way over it: just lingering his fingertips over the wood overwhelmed him with sadness and passion and broken dreams, sensations so intense that he flinched away and had to steady himself against the marble shelf of the fireplace.
“What the…” he breathed out, unable to wrap his mind around what just happened. Stepping backwards, Pete kept eyeing it warily and made his way upstairs.
Much like the previous day, as soon as he stepped inside the master bedroom he was hit by the coldness that filled it, even more bone-chilling that day: everything was a big no-no, from the wallpaper to the furniture (too vintage for his liking) and Pete noted down ‘bedroom’ in the ‘no’ column, feeling instantly a bit better, not to mention when he closed the bedroom’s door behind himself.
All in all the two spare rooms and the bathrooms (downstairs and upstairs) were good too: he could sum the whole inspection with “burn those damned flowery curtains”, “change the master bedroom, thankyouverymuch” and “repaint every wall”. Pete could call himself satisfied of the purchase and of the status of the house. This more focused inspection took him less than what he expected, since he thought the interns were in a more desperate condition, but there was a lot of things he could save and reuse (and maybe organize a little flea market in his garden); he didn’t even have to pay a company to move his stuff in, because he could count on his more or less willing friends (he could be quite greedy sometimes).
He was hungry: he could invite himself over to some friends and hang out, he’ll check the boxes in the attic maybe later or even the next day.
.
~°~
“Aaaah, I’m gonna explode,” Pete exclaimed after devouring two full dishes of the awesome Mrs Iero’s lasagna, patting his belly to stress the concept.
“Well, get out of my house, then, I don’t wanna shovel flesh and pasta off the furniture,” Mikey deadpanned while retrieving the empty dishes; Frank snickered by his side.
“Aww I know you love me, Mikeyway…” Pete cooed, winking an eye at Frank.
Mikey waved him off and sat back at the table.
“How’s your new place?” he finally questioned.
“Oh, it’s awesome, I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. It’s also still in good shape, pumbling and furniture and all. I just need some fresh paint, replace the TV with my device, discard those godawful curtains and completely change the bedroom…well, maybe I could save the bed structure, bud the rest has to go away,” Pete explained.
“Why?” Frank asked.
“Because I don’t like how it’s furnished, duh,” the guest scoffs. The idea of telling his friends about the coldness of that room, or about the piano episode, didn’t even cross his mind.
“So when do you need help to move in?” Franks asked innocently, earning himself a glare from Mikey, who perfectly knew Pete’s antics and how much a profiteer he could be at times.
Pete’s eyes gleamed in ecstasy, “I thought you’d have never asked,” he mockingly awed.
“It’s not a marriage proposal, Pete, quit it with your crap and tell us when do you need our help,” Mikey said resigned.
“Uhm…maybe you can pass by tomorrow already to help me getting rid of what I don’t need,” Pete suggested.
“Okay,” is Mikey’s sighed affirmation, along with Frank’s nod.
“See you around noon, then?” the guest asked standing up to leave.
“Yeah, okay, see ya tomorrow,” Frank smiled and led Pete to the door.
“Thank you. Bring something to eat!” Pete shouted halfway through the stairs.
~°~
He watched with an eyebrow raised how quickly the man was talking at the phone, how loudly he laughed, how much he gestured and stalked around the whole attic, how he kept getting distracted like a magpie with every shiny thing it spotted.
“Hey Gabe, I need…”
“Hey Joe, listen…”
“Travis! My man…”
He shook his head at his living roommate and his enthusiasm. If he only knew…
But wait, this man can know…He concentrated and pushed the pile of boxes, making everything fall.
“Shit!” came a scared curse, muffled by the thuds of the boxes and their contents falling all over the floor.
He looked how the man turned and paled staring at the mess, stuttering a “Call you later,” in the phone before cautiously tiptoeing towards the chaos that made him jump out of his skin.
With a satisfied smirk he passed through the floor to chill in the living room.
~°~
What the FUCK was that? Pete’s heart was beating rapidly, he totally wasn’t expecting the boxes to fall, he was sure they were in secure piles.
Breathing slowly to calm down a bit, he crouched down and checked the content of the boxes, something that he was going to do sooner or later
Notepads everywhere, he flipped through one and saw musical notes with occasional words (lyrics?) all over the pages: he collected them in an empty box and made a mental note to read through them later. And one box was done.
Vinyls: a lot of blues, Bowie, Prince, some punk and classical stuff, Pete carefully put them in another box and saved them as well (whether he was going to sell them of keep them, it’d have been a blasphemy if he simply threw them away).
Books went in two separated boxes: Pete patiently passed through all the titles to know what to keep and what not.
A prehistoric MC player with a cassette in it and another in its own case, both cases with the titles of the songs neatly written on them (they looked like two mixtapes), joined a set of new needles for the vinyl player and guitar strings in yet another “saved box”. Same fate for musicals in VHS and a few other movies.
Oh, the box of the first day: drumsticks, guitar picks (but where were the guitar and the drums?) and again the purple trumpet. Pete found himself smiling a bit and putting them aside in their box.
Clothes: awful argyle pieces of clothes among the others, from sweaters to socks, but mostly hats over hats over hats-he filled a whole box only with the hats. He could give them away, to some charity or something.
Silverware, dishes, all that crap: he didn’t need complete services of fine china, he was perfectly fine with those few chipped dishes he owned and that rarely used because he mostly ordered from the take away and ate directly from the cartons.
Toys: cars, balls, robots, plushies ware the same of Pete’s childhood, he almost dripped a happy tear when he saw them. He didn’t have the heart to throw them away, but he still had some of his own toys back in his parents’ house and they could join his collection…Ah, he was torn.
Once Pete was satisfied, he stood up and dusted his hands and knees, looking around to see if there was anything left. That’s when he spotted a dark trunk at the far end of the attic.
He tried the locks but they were, of course, locked, and it was no use pulling or pushing or tugging, they just weren’t going to open any time soon- Pete rummaged through the boxes again to look for a key, but he wasn’t lucky and was hence forced to wait for Travis to come over with his tool. Sighing fondly, he stood up again and returned downstairs, distractedly eating a pre-made noodle soup and placing himself in front of the TV that, you know, induces sleep.
~°~
Pete woke up almost more tired than when he went to bed, thanks to noises coming from the attic-he almost pissed his pants but forced himself to go check, not finding anything at all. He wasn’t at all in the mood to move in, that day, but his friends were coming over in a couple of hours just for him. To keep himself busy while waiting for them, Pete retrieved the few still empty boxes from the attic and packed them with any knickknack left from the previous owners he saw around, the garbage, the damned curtains.
…Okay, this took him barely an hour: what could he do while waiting for his friends? Mikey and Frank were coming with food, while Travis, Joe and Gabe had to stop at his apartment to get his boxes before getting there. Mentally shrugging, Pete grabbed his acoustic bass and started plucking it, playing any random melody that popped in his mind and singing along.
~°~
He cringed at the man’s voice: it was too raucous and out of tune, what the hell? People like him shouldn’t sing by law.
A sudden rage hit him and the temperature immediately dropped.
~°~
Pete stopped playing and looked around, trying to spot the thermostat to see how on Earth it could happen to become so cold so suddenly. He leant the instrument against the couch and stood up, heading to the storeroom below stairs and tapping the thermostat’s screen.
~°~
He walked towards the abandoned bass. It looked so tempting.
He wanted to play.
He wanted to play again.
He wanted to keep playing. Forever.
He felt the man was returning, confusion transpiring through every pore.
He vanished.
~°~
Pete flopped on the couch, dumbfounded, but at least the temperature was back to normal. He didn’t feel like playing anymore, though, and took Hemingway out in the lawn in front of the house. Pete didn’t pay attention to it, but something heavy lifted off his chest as soon as he stepped outside.
Playing catch with the dog made the time fly, and soon Mikey, Frank and Gabe arrived at Pete’s house.
“Hey guys!” he exclaimed, “Thanks for coming!”
“No problem, man,” Gabe crooned, “Nice house! Are you settling in, uh? I can already see you in the future with your significant other on your dear rocking chairs on the porch and recalling the good ol’ times,” he smirked.
“Ha. Funny,” Pete playfully glared, shaking the branch Hemmy had to fetch in front of his friend’s nose, “I’ll find my matching soul and you’ll see. Just wait.”
Pete was used to be the laughing stock of the group for being the only one still single at the great age of 31, while Mikey had Frank, Gabe had Victoria, Joe had Marie and Travis had Katy. Sure, he still had some success with people, but his stories didn’t last more than a few weeks (he still had the plate his friends made him when he broke up with Ashlee, relationship that lasted for no less than two month, definitely his longer story).
“But wait…didn’t you have to go with Travie and Joe to my apartment?” Pete cocked an eyebrow.
“Change of plans, I got the paint and these guys kindly gave me a lift,” Gabe pointed at Mikey and Frank, who lived three blocks away from the hardware shop close to Gabe’s place.
“Only because you called us, pleading to give you a lift,” Mikey retorted bitingly.
“What if we weren’t headed here?” Frank chuckled.
“Oh, but I knew you were,” Gabe said easily, “We all know Pete,” he grinned. The three men looked at Pete and nodded mockingly gravely.
“Come on in, we’ll wait for Trav and Joe inside,” Pete rolled his eyes and led the way to his new house. Right before he closed the door, a car haphazardly parked in the free spot behind Mikey’s car, smoke quite fogging the windows; giggles caught Pete’s ear and he returned outside in time to see Joe and Travis stumble out of the vehicle.
“Yo, Pete,” Travis greeted with a lazy smile, echoed by Joe.
Pete snorted and gestures them to get in. The company was finally complete.
~°~
He stared almost outraged at the bunch of guys that had literally invaded his house, who were talking loudly, telling nasty stories, eating messily in the living room. It wasn’t like he was a neat-freak, but they were intruders--yes, even the man who legitimately bought the house.
~°~
“So, where do we start from?” Joe asked, stirring on the couch.
“Uhm…let’s split,” Pete decided, “Travis, Mikey and Frank in the kitchen, the cupboards need to be cleaned and secured and the walls need to be repainted. Joe, Gabe and I will do the living room, then we’ll decide what to do upstairs.”
“We’re gonna get the tools and the tins of paint,” Travis and Gabe chorused, heading to the cars.
When they were all set, the move could begin: they fiddled with the couch to make it pass through the door, brought boxes and furniture outside, did minimal interventions to needy pieces of furniture, dusted and cleaned everything.
It’d have been an awesome group work, if inexplicable events didn’t fuck their efforts up.
Paint cans spilling by themselves, leaving puddles of paint on the freshly cleaned floor.
Drawers and cupboard doors closing on the fingers of the unlucky guy that was working on that particular piece of furniture.
The main door closing by itself.
Pete’s friends were growing frustrated, seeing all their hard work vanishing under their eyes.
“What. The Fuck. Is going on,” Mikey finally voiced everybody’s thoughts.
“I-I really…” Pete started, but his friends’ stern and tired faces made him spill everything out.
“I think there’s a ghost.”
~°~
He was enjoying the scene from the stairs, comfortably propped against the handrail.
~°~
Mikey, Frank, Gabe, Travis and Joe were looking at Pete like he was nuts.
“A ghost,” Mikey repeated blankly.
Pete nodded silently. Silence filled the living room after his statement.
Mikey pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, “When were you going to tell us?”
“I don’t know! I thought there was some rational explication to anything that has happened in these couple of days, but with you here everything has gotten worse,” Pete whined.
“So now it’s our fault?” Gabe frowned.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that!” Pete groaned. Nobody said anything for a few pregnant minutes.
“I’m gonna call Gerard and ask him what to do,” Mikey took his cellphone and dialed his brother’s number: Gerard was famous for his passion about supernatural.
Pete nodded at him thankful and waited anxiously for the other man to pick up the damned phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey Gerard.”
“Hey Mikes, how are things?”
“Quite good, but we need your professional opinion.”
“…As illustrator or as ghost hunter in my spare time?”
“The second. It’s for Pete.”
“Put him on.”
“’llo Gerard.”
“Hi Pete. So, what’s going on?”
“I think my new house is haunted.”
“Do you know anything about the story of the house?”
“Only that it was built in the Seventies, but they didn’t tell me anything about murders or something.”
“I suggest you doing some research with your estate agency, then call me back and we’ll see what to do.”
“…Listen, Gerard…”
“Oh, yeah, you aren’t big with patience and diligence,” Gerard rolled his eyes on the other line. He often wondered what got Mikey to have a relationship with the guy, in the past.
Pete cringed, unable to retort to the cruel truth.
“Okay, okay, there’s always the good old Ouija board. If you don’t own one I think you can use a makeshift one with paper, letters written all over together with ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’ and a glass to use as planchette. But I have to warn you, it’s not totally safe either way, God only knows who you have there -maybe only a prankster, but we can’t know for sure. It’d be better if I were there, because I participated to several séances, but you know as well as me that I live almost all the way across the States…” Gerard was concerned.
“It’s okay, Gerard, thanks for your help. We’ll keep you updated,” Pete felt already a little bit relieved.
“Anytime…And be safe,” Gerard warned, then hung up.
Pete gulped, “Are you up for an impromptu séance?”
His friends immediately froze and looked at each other. They looked around, focusing on the mess in the living room, and finally accepted, not light-heartedly.
Pete tore a sheet of paper from his notepad and scribbled the alphabet on it, then ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’ as Gerard suggested, trying to remember how an Ouija board looks. Travis bravely ventured in the kitchen and retrieved a glass from one of the boxes they filled earlier that day, while Joe and Gabe nailed boards on the windows to make the room as dark as possible and Mikey and Frank made room around the short coffee table for them to sit on the floor.
Pete fished a candle from yet another box and lightened it, putting it on the table together with the piece of paper and the glass. The guys sat on the floor around the table and threw side glances all around the room.
Pete cleared his throat, “Let’s get it over with,” he stated and lingered his fingers on the cold surface of the glass. One by one, the others copied his gesture hesitantly and threw out a long choral breath.
“Is anybody here?”
~°~
Were they really having a séance, expecting him to show himself? He snickered.
~°~
Those three words felt heavy in the thick atmosphere of the room, tension palpable and anticipation graving on the men’s shoulders.
Seconds passed and nothing happened.
“Is anybody here?” Pete repeated, tongue heavy in his mouth.
The light flickered on and off before switching off completely, startling everybody. Pete let out an undignified squeak.
“W-Who are you?” the self-proclaimed medium plied.
“P-A-T-R-I-C-K,” the glass spelled.
The men looked at each other wide eyed, excited and petrified at the same time.
“Why are you doing all these pranks?”
“M-Y-H-O-U-S-E”
“We can live together amicably, you know?” Pete attempted a chuckle and peace offer.
“NO”
Everybody tensed.
“If you have any unresolved business, we can help you,” Pete proposed. He didn’t get a reply for a full minute, before the glass moved again.
“M-U-S-I-C”
“We aren’t going anywhere with this, it’s fucking slow,” Pete whispered, earning a deserved kick from Mikey.
“T-H-A-N-K-S” the ‘board’ spelled again. Everybody giggled, even Pete.
“Sorry,” the man apologized sheepishly, mindful of what Gerard didn’t properly say but that was obvious - don’t piss the spirits off.
~°~
He hated admitting it, but his ‘roommate’ was right, they’ll never conclude a damn this way.
He wondered if the guy with the nose and lip ring was going to be a good host…
~°~
Frank sniggered, “Okay, where were we?”
Everybody at the table turned towards him. Frank looked a bit unfocused and his features were contorted in a bitterly playful grimace.
“Frank?” Mikey called.
“Oh, so that’s his name? Thank him on my behalf, later,” Frank blushed faintly, not totally visible in the candle light.
“Frank?!” Mikey was going to reach for his boyfriend, but Pete admonished, “Don’t take your fingers off the glass!”
Mikey kept looking at Frank worriedly, but did as asked.
“I’m sorry but I had to, or we’d still be here for next year’s Christmas,” Frank voiced Patrick’s words, “So, are you really sure you want to help me?”
Five heads nodded in agreement.
“Thank you very much. But first, I think I have to tell you who the hell I am,” Frank-Patrick conceded.
~°~
My name is Patrick Stump and I committed suicide at the end of January 1997, three months shy to my eighteenth birthday. I slit my wrists in my parents’ bedroom, for a more shocking discovery and to make my father pay for crushing my dreams.
I’ve always been very fond of music and craved to learn every musical instrument possible. I admit I’d never been that good of a lyricist, but the most important thing for me was the music part, so I composed a lot of melodies, inspired by my favorite musicians-
“Bowie and Prince?” Pete grinned.
“Yes,” Patrick smiled back.
I had an older brother, who was the perfect son in my father’s opinion: Kevin always did what our father wanted, had really good grades, went to Harvard to become a lawyer because our father decided so. We all were (SUCCUBI) of our father’s decision - he was the one who chose the best schools for us and planned our future careers, uncaring of our real passions and interests.
I was more of a ‘mommy-boy’, as in my mother secretly tried to avoid what happened with Kevin. For example, when she noticed my inclination towards music, she taught me to play the piano and had her hard time convincing my father to allow me to have a guitar when I got into my teen years - you know how things work, you want to play a cool instrument when you’re that age. My maternal grandparents tried to help me as well, in fact they bought me a drum kit that I was able to play only at their place.
My father eventually gave in and bought me a guitar for my fourteenth birthday, snagging me the promise to get better grades and to still have school as my priority, not “worthless music, Patrick, because you don’t want to be a worthless man, am I right?”, as he always said.
Starting from that day, I’d been scribbling chords over chords on tons of notepads, practicing the guitar and mumbling lyrics that I thought could fit instead of doing homework, standing up until late at night to catch up with them and make my father think I was totally focused on school. I was lucky Kevin was out of state for college, otherwise I’m pretty sure he’d have reported me to my father.
When it was my turn to apply for college, I already knew my fate, but dared to put my foot down and asked to attend a college where I would have been able to major in Music…I shouldn’t have. My father shouted in my face, saying that I wasn’t going anywhere strumming in some filthy bar for a few cents a show, that he was working hard to afford the best schools for his sons when he wasn’t able to attend them, that I wasn’t grateful for what he was doing for me and his efforts to assure me a steady future. He flied in my room and grabbed my guitar, but it was no use to plead him to leave me the instruments, he didn’t fall for my fake promises to become a lawyer, he was frustrated that I wasn’t like my brother.
“Son of a bitch,” Pete hissed.
I followed my father in the attic, where he locked the guitar in the black trunk in the corner and broke the keys in the locks; he then dragged me downstairs and closed me in my bedroom, claiming I wasn’t getting out until I made up my mind.
I was glad he didn’t break the guitar and the thought that I’d have been able to retrieve it, breaking the locks with my father’s tools, gave me hope. I was already planning my runaway, but I made a huge mistake: I underestimated him. My father locked his tools away and I’ve never been able to find the key, after he finally let me out.
During my forced stay in my room, I thought about finding a job to earn money enough to buy another guitar, but my father would’ve surely locked it away as well, if not broken or burnt it. I thought about running away, but he wasn’t going to give up on me easily…I was so mad at him, I wanted to make him pay.
He put his dreams in his sons, so I decided to break one of his dreams killing myself. One day, when my father was still at work and my mother went to visit a friend of her, I took one of my father’s razor blades and went in their bedroom, lied on their bed and cut my wrists. I don’t know what happened next, I just passed out for hemorrhage and I wasn’t able to see my father’s face when he saw me; I woke up something like a month later in a silent, empty house, my parents nowhere to be seen.
I’ve been stuck in this house since then, every attempt to get my guitar back was vane, so I found myself haunting this house. At first I didn’t scare the inhabitants on purpose, I was just trying to feel alive again with my music playing the piano during the night, but all those years in ghastly solitude almost drove me insane. I was blinded by my rabid retrieval of my guitar, I actually spooked them with the intention to just leave me alone with my regrets and don’t let them touch my instruments.
~°~
“I’m sorry I scared you, but whenever I tried to contact the past inhabitants to have their help they left right then and there, so I thought it’d have been the same with you and thus tried to scare you away,” Patrick apologized. A few tears were running down Frank’s face while the ghost recounted his past.
Pete, Mikey, Gabe, Travis and Joe were looking at Frank-Patrick totally upset and sad for this boy who ended his life at such a young age because he saw his dreams vanish under the father’s pressure.
Pete was the first to recover, “Travie, do you have the pincers with you?” he whispered, not wanting to break the atmosphere.
Travis nodded silently and stood up, breaking the contact with the glass, to get his tools belt from the kitchen counter. When he returned in the living room, Pete was on his feet as well, while the others ended the session -Mikey closed the ‘board’ in case some other spirit wanted in- and Frank was still possessed by Patrick.
“Let’s open that fucking trunk,” Pete stated and led the way to the attic.
The men climbed up two stair cases and reached the attic, trunk still in its place in the far end of the room. Travis approached it with the pincers and with some effort he managed to snap the locks open; Pete and Patrick were right behind him, breath caught in their throats. When Travis opened the trunk, Patrick fell on his knees and started crying, with Pete right at his side hugging him comfortingly.
The guitar had been waiting patiently for Patrick for almost fourteen years.
Patrick threw Frank’s arms around Pete and cried in his shoulder, thankful beyond words.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you…All of you,” he chocked out. Pete patted Frank’s dark locks imagining it was Patrick’s hair and whispered, “Don’t mention it.”
When Patrick finally calmed down, he carefully took his guitar from the trunk and heavy tears fell on its glossy surface.
“…Would you like to play us something?” Pete asked shyly.
Patrick looked at him like Pete just told him he won the lottery. Patrick sat on the floor and with a lapful of guitar he started strumming to remember how to play; when he was ready, he closed the eyes and Frank’s tattooed fingers ran smoothly on the strings.
Before Patrick started playing, Travis snooped in the trunk and found a photo album that showed to Pete, who sat next to him.
“Hey man, look at this.”
Pete took the album and flipped through the pages, immediately spotting a boy with different hats in most of the photos: he looked exactly like the boy of his dream.
“So this is Patrick,” he whispered, and when he looked up at Frank, his friend disappeared in front of his eyes to be substituted by a strawberry blonde boy with trucker hat and a faint aura around him. Patrick was fully concentrated but smiling, at peace with a guitar in hand: he was so talented, it was really a disgrace he had to end his life.
When Patrick finished the song and Pete blinked, Frank slumped on the floor and Patrick’s ghost was a little more corporeal. Mikey rushed at Frank’s side and tried to shake him awake.
“Don’t worry for him, he’ll recover soon,” Patrick smiled softly, then turned to Pete and Travis, “Thank you for getting my guitar back, I can finally go now.”
Travis nodded and excused himself, leaving Pete and Patrick alone.
“I know we haven’t had a real friendship, but I’m gonna miss you,” Pete said with a watery smile.
“I’m sorry I made you think you were going nuts, especially because you helped me in the end, and I’m gonna miss you too. I’m sure we’d have been friends, if…you know,” Patrick trailed off and blushed, scratching his head in embarrassment.
It was instinctive: Pete launched himself at Patrick to hug him goodbye. The surprising thing was that Patrick felt real between his arms, almost warm when he hugged Pete back.
“Goodbye, guys,” Patrick stated while silent tears rolled down his pale cheeks. His pearlish features slowly vanished in front of Pete and his friends, and finally he disappeared.
Pete stared at the spot where Patrick was standing just a moment ago with hot tears falling uncontrollably for what felt like forever. It was Mikey’s relieved gasp that made him turn.
“Frank!” everybody yelled, relieved to have their friend back.
“What happened?” Frank asked hazily.
“You…you were possessed,” Mikey explained as tactful as possible.
“I was…Patrick, where’s Patrick?” Frank sat up and looked around.
“He’s gone. He left said to thank you,” Pete smiled, unable to stop his tears though.
“Oh. Then what happened to him?”
The other five looked at each other.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Mikey suggested, “we’ll recount everything on the couch with a beer in hand.”
~°~
“So he’s gone. Are you relieved now?”
“…No.”
characters: Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Gabe Saporta, Travis McCoy, Joe Trohman
pov: 3rd
rating: PG13?
prompt: ghosts and hauntings
summary: Pete moves in a new house but his 'roommate' doesn't quite want him
disclaimer: as true as Casper
A/N:fucking.FINALLY. I finished it x_X how I hate writer's blocks...
The house was rather big for only one person, Pete had to admit it, but he fell in love with it at first sight: two stories plus attic, neat porch up front, wide garden around for Hemingway. Yes, he’ll live there no matter what, throwing parties while waiting for the person who will dare to spend the rest of their life with him in that same house, till death tears them apart.
The professionally cordial woman of the estate agency was waiting for him at the door; he jogged his way towards her and they shook hands before entering. The realtor illustrated Pete all the features of the house, from the spacious and light rooms to the quality of the building materials and also the facilities in the neighborhood.
It was already furnished, Pete noticed, and it wasn’t half as bad as what he imagined: he thought there were more granny-like cupboards and doilies everywhere, but it was pretty modern yet classic -It was built in the Seventies, the agent said, but it’s in step with the times inside- and Pete had already eyed a vinyl player, he couldn’t wait to check if it still worked once he’d moved in.
“I take it,” Pete affirmed with a broad smile, taking the contract the agent was handing him and signing it without a second thought.
~°~
The following afternoon Pete parked his ratty car in front of his new home, starting to unload the few things he brought to get familiar with the house before moving in for good. He’s already planned it: pillow, sheets, notebook, bass, vinyls and dog for a week, roaming the house to make a list of what to save and what to get rid of before forcing his friends to help him move the rest of his stuff in, and finally throwing an inauguration party.
With the keys the estate agent gave him the previous day, Pete opened the white front door and got in, Hemingway trotting ahead of him. Leaving his duffel bag and bass case against the cabinet at the entrance, he inhaled deeply and looked around satisfied before entering the kitchen; he noticed just in that moment that the fridge was obviously empty and ordered Hemingway not to destroy everything while he was away.
Running outside, he took the car to drive to the supermarket down the opposite street.
~°~
He watched the black haired man rushing outside, while the dog woofed lazily at the closing door before turning to him, head cocked to the side.
He disappeared.
~°~
Pete opened the door as quickly as he could with an arm full of groceries (beer, icecream, poptarts, milk, noodles, dog food), breathing in relief when he saw Hemingway hadn’t thrown the whole house down.
“Good boy, Hemmy,” he patted the dog’s head and put the grocery bag on the kitchen table. He took his hoodie off and ungraciously abandoned it on the chair back before putting the food away, but a single bark made him turn.
“What, Hem?” Pete asked the dog, who was looking at the table from the door. The man looked as well and noticed how his hoodie was now neatly arranged on the chair: a bit baffled, he shrugged it off, thinking he may have had an OCD moment while taking the hoodie off instead of throwing it somewhere like he always does, without remembering it.
Pete soon forgot about the hoodie, though, too busy opening and closing every cupboard present in the kitchen, checking every furniture in the living room, testing the couch and the vinyl player (really comfy the first, still in perfect status the second), inspecting every room upstairs.
Between the bathroom and one of the spare rooms there was the door to the attic, that Pete was pretty sure to remember the estate agent closed after she explained what was that for and showed him the narrow stairs.
Pete gulped loudly and flicked the light switch on, carefully taking a step a time to get in the attic; once there, he couldn’t help but wonder who was the previous owner of the house and why they left some boxes behind. The boxes were exactly under the round window Pete wanted to open, so he had to move them a bit to the side, but when he reached for the dark sheet that covered the window he made a small box fall with a clanking sound. Jumping for the sudden noise, Pete looked suspiciously at the contents that scattered on the floor: a pair of drum sticks, guitar picks and even a trumpet were now spread on the dusty wooden boards, the brass instrument catching the few rays of the sun and reflecting some purple sparkles of the metal. Pete picked it up and chuckled, who the hell plays a purple trumpet?
Diligently (for once) tidying up and putting the box back in its place, Pete promised himself to check the content of the boxes in case there was something useful, since nobody had reclaimed them before the house was sold. He called it a day and returned in the living room, setting the couch as makeshift bed: it wasn’t only a question of hygiene that he didn’t sleep in one of the bedrooms, that first night…it was that the upper floor was damn cold, in particular the master bedroom, as he noticed during his inspection. Snuggling under his washed out blanket and getting more comfortable on the couch, he faced the TV, zapping idly before eventually falling asleep, lulled by Hemingway’s soft snoring below him.
~°~
He stared at the intruder all night with hard eyes: it was irritating how messy that man was, leaving things out of place, let alone that dog of his that was smearing the whole house with its icky drool.
He eventually rolled his eyes and turned the TV off, then stalked away.
~°~
Pete woke up fairly early, surprised for having been able to sleep so well and for so long, compared to his usual insomniac nights, and surprised to find the TV off.
Weird…maybe I switched it off in my sleep or it has some timer still set…Oh well.
Pete shrugged it off once again, unfazed by those random events, and started his day with a bunch of poptarts and a gulp of milk directly from the bottle. He couldn’t shake off, though, the sensation that someone had been playing the piano in the corner during the night: maybe it was only a dream, someone with a hat showing his back to Pete and playing a really sad song, but it was really realistic.
“Ok let’s do it,” he said out loud to the house, ready to take a new tour and put the things he didn’t like or looked too old to be still good to the side. Armed with his notepad, where he very simply scribbled ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on top separated by a vertical line all the way to the end of the page, he started from the kitchen: he dared to say it was all good, only the cupboards needed some elbow oil to get rid of the dust and a passage with the screwdriver to secure the doors, and a coat of paint on the walls wouldn’t hurt. The flowery curtains must disappear though…
Moving to the living room, Pete’s eyes immediately locked on the vinyl player, that was a must-stay. He already tested the sofa and while it was very comfortable, he really didn’t like the paisley pattern, so he should at least buy a sofa cover or something. The TV looked quite old and it definitely couldn’t compare with the modern LCD screen he still had in his apartment, so yeah, he already found a more than good substitute.
Scanning the rest of the room, Pete spotted the small piano of his dream in the corner and made his way over it: just lingering his fingertips over the wood overwhelmed him with sadness and passion and broken dreams, sensations so intense that he flinched away and had to steady himself against the marble shelf of the fireplace.
“What the…” he breathed out, unable to wrap his mind around what just happened. Stepping backwards, Pete kept eyeing it warily and made his way upstairs.
Much like the previous day, as soon as he stepped inside the master bedroom he was hit by the coldness that filled it, even more bone-chilling that day: everything was a big no-no, from the wallpaper to the furniture (too vintage for his liking) and Pete noted down ‘bedroom’ in the ‘no’ column, feeling instantly a bit better, not to mention when he closed the bedroom’s door behind himself.
All in all the two spare rooms and the bathrooms (downstairs and upstairs) were good too: he could sum the whole inspection with “burn those damned flowery curtains”, “change the master bedroom, thankyouverymuch” and “repaint every wall”. Pete could call himself satisfied of the purchase and of the status of the house. This more focused inspection took him less than what he expected, since he thought the interns were in a more desperate condition, but there was a lot of things he could save and reuse (and maybe organize a little flea market in his garden); he didn’t even have to pay a company to move his stuff in, because he could count on his more or less willing friends (he could be quite greedy sometimes).
He was hungry: he could invite himself over to some friends and hang out, he’ll check the boxes in the attic maybe later or even the next day.
.
~°~
“Aaaah, I’m gonna explode,” Pete exclaimed after devouring two full dishes of the awesome Mrs Iero’s lasagna, patting his belly to stress the concept.
“Well, get out of my house, then, I don’t wanna shovel flesh and pasta off the furniture,” Mikey deadpanned while retrieving the empty dishes; Frank snickered by his side.
“Aww I know you love me, Mikeyway…” Pete cooed, winking an eye at Frank.
Mikey waved him off and sat back at the table.
“How’s your new place?” he finally questioned.
“Oh, it’s awesome, I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. It’s also still in good shape, pumbling and furniture and all. I just need some fresh paint, replace the TV with my device, discard those godawful curtains and completely change the bedroom…well, maybe I could save the bed structure, bud the rest has to go away,” Pete explained.
“Why?” Frank asked.
“Because I don’t like how it’s furnished, duh,” the guest scoffs. The idea of telling his friends about the coldness of that room, or about the piano episode, didn’t even cross his mind.
“So when do you need help to move in?” Franks asked innocently, earning himself a glare from Mikey, who perfectly knew Pete’s antics and how much a profiteer he could be at times.
Pete’s eyes gleamed in ecstasy, “I thought you’d have never asked,” he mockingly awed.
“It’s not a marriage proposal, Pete, quit it with your crap and tell us when do you need our help,” Mikey said resigned.
“Uhm…maybe you can pass by tomorrow already to help me getting rid of what I don’t need,” Pete suggested.
“Okay,” is Mikey’s sighed affirmation, along with Frank’s nod.
“See you around noon, then?” the guest asked standing up to leave.
“Yeah, okay, see ya tomorrow,” Frank smiled and led Pete to the door.
“Thank you. Bring something to eat!” Pete shouted halfway through the stairs.
~°~
He watched with an eyebrow raised how quickly the man was talking at the phone, how loudly he laughed, how much he gestured and stalked around the whole attic, how he kept getting distracted like a magpie with every shiny thing it spotted.
“Hey Gabe, I need…”
“Hey Joe, listen…”
“Travis! My man…”
He shook his head at his living roommate and his enthusiasm. If he only knew…
But wait, this man can know…He concentrated and pushed the pile of boxes, making everything fall.
“Shit!” came a scared curse, muffled by the thuds of the boxes and their contents falling all over the floor.
He looked how the man turned and paled staring at the mess, stuttering a “Call you later,” in the phone before cautiously tiptoeing towards the chaos that made him jump out of his skin.
With a satisfied smirk he passed through the floor to chill in the living room.
~°~
What the FUCK was that? Pete’s heart was beating rapidly, he totally wasn’t expecting the boxes to fall, he was sure they were in secure piles.
Breathing slowly to calm down a bit, he crouched down and checked the content of the boxes, something that he was going to do sooner or later
Notepads everywhere, he flipped through one and saw musical notes with occasional words (lyrics?) all over the pages: he collected them in an empty box and made a mental note to read through them later. And one box was done.
Vinyls: a lot of blues, Bowie, Prince, some punk and classical stuff, Pete carefully put them in another box and saved them as well (whether he was going to sell them of keep them, it’d have been a blasphemy if he simply threw them away).
Books went in two separated boxes: Pete patiently passed through all the titles to know what to keep and what not.
A prehistoric MC player with a cassette in it and another in its own case, both cases with the titles of the songs neatly written on them (they looked like two mixtapes), joined a set of new needles for the vinyl player and guitar strings in yet another “saved box”. Same fate for musicals in VHS and a few other movies.
Oh, the box of the first day: drumsticks, guitar picks (but where were the guitar and the drums?) and again the purple trumpet. Pete found himself smiling a bit and putting them aside in their box.
Clothes: awful argyle pieces of clothes among the others, from sweaters to socks, but mostly hats over hats over hats-he filled a whole box only with the hats. He could give them away, to some charity or something.
Silverware, dishes, all that crap: he didn’t need complete services of fine china, he was perfectly fine with those few chipped dishes he owned and that rarely used because he mostly ordered from the take away and ate directly from the cartons.
Toys: cars, balls, robots, plushies ware the same of Pete’s childhood, he almost dripped a happy tear when he saw them. He didn’t have the heart to throw them away, but he still had some of his own toys back in his parents’ house and they could join his collection…Ah, he was torn.
Once Pete was satisfied, he stood up and dusted his hands and knees, looking around to see if there was anything left. That’s when he spotted a dark trunk at the far end of the attic.
He tried the locks but they were, of course, locked, and it was no use pulling or pushing or tugging, they just weren’t going to open any time soon- Pete rummaged through the boxes again to look for a key, but he wasn’t lucky and was hence forced to wait for Travis to come over with his tool. Sighing fondly, he stood up again and returned downstairs, distractedly eating a pre-made noodle soup and placing himself in front of the TV that, you know, induces sleep.
~°~
Pete woke up almost more tired than when he went to bed, thanks to noises coming from the attic-he almost pissed his pants but forced himself to go check, not finding anything at all. He wasn’t at all in the mood to move in, that day, but his friends were coming over in a couple of hours just for him. To keep himself busy while waiting for them, Pete retrieved the few still empty boxes from the attic and packed them with any knickknack left from the previous owners he saw around, the garbage, the damned curtains.
…Okay, this took him barely an hour: what could he do while waiting for his friends? Mikey and Frank were coming with food, while Travis, Joe and Gabe had to stop at his apartment to get his boxes before getting there. Mentally shrugging, Pete grabbed his acoustic bass and started plucking it, playing any random melody that popped in his mind and singing along.
~°~
He cringed at the man’s voice: it was too raucous and out of tune, what the hell? People like him shouldn’t sing by law.
A sudden rage hit him and the temperature immediately dropped.
~°~
Pete stopped playing and looked around, trying to spot the thermostat to see how on Earth it could happen to become so cold so suddenly. He leant the instrument against the couch and stood up, heading to the storeroom below stairs and tapping the thermostat’s screen.
~°~
He walked towards the abandoned bass. It looked so tempting.
He wanted to play.
He wanted to play again.
He wanted to keep playing. Forever.
He felt the man was returning, confusion transpiring through every pore.
He vanished.
~°~
Pete flopped on the couch, dumbfounded, but at least the temperature was back to normal. He didn’t feel like playing anymore, though, and took Hemingway out in the lawn in front of the house. Pete didn’t pay attention to it, but something heavy lifted off his chest as soon as he stepped outside.
Playing catch with the dog made the time fly, and soon Mikey, Frank and Gabe arrived at Pete’s house.
“Hey guys!” he exclaimed, “Thanks for coming!”
“No problem, man,” Gabe crooned, “Nice house! Are you settling in, uh? I can already see you in the future with your significant other on your dear rocking chairs on the porch and recalling the good ol’ times,” he smirked.
“Ha. Funny,” Pete playfully glared, shaking the branch Hemmy had to fetch in front of his friend’s nose, “I’ll find my matching soul and you’ll see. Just wait.”
Pete was used to be the laughing stock of the group for being the only one still single at the great age of 31, while Mikey had Frank, Gabe had Victoria, Joe had Marie and Travis had Katy. Sure, he still had some success with people, but his stories didn’t last more than a few weeks (he still had the plate his friends made him when he broke up with Ashlee, relationship that lasted for no less than two month, definitely his longer story).
“But wait…didn’t you have to go with Travie and Joe to my apartment?” Pete cocked an eyebrow.
“Change of plans, I got the paint and these guys kindly gave me a lift,” Gabe pointed at Mikey and Frank, who lived three blocks away from the hardware shop close to Gabe’s place.
“Only because you called us, pleading to give you a lift,” Mikey retorted bitingly.
“What if we weren’t headed here?” Frank chuckled.
“Oh, but I knew you were,” Gabe said easily, “We all know Pete,” he grinned. The three men looked at Pete and nodded mockingly gravely.
“Come on in, we’ll wait for Trav and Joe inside,” Pete rolled his eyes and led the way to his new house. Right before he closed the door, a car haphazardly parked in the free spot behind Mikey’s car, smoke quite fogging the windows; giggles caught Pete’s ear and he returned outside in time to see Joe and Travis stumble out of the vehicle.
“Yo, Pete,” Travis greeted with a lazy smile, echoed by Joe.
Pete snorted and gestures them to get in. The company was finally complete.
~°~
He stared almost outraged at the bunch of guys that had literally invaded his house, who were talking loudly, telling nasty stories, eating messily in the living room. It wasn’t like he was a neat-freak, but they were intruders--yes, even the man who legitimately bought the house.
~°~
“So, where do we start from?” Joe asked, stirring on the couch.
“Uhm…let’s split,” Pete decided, “Travis, Mikey and Frank in the kitchen, the cupboards need to be cleaned and secured and the walls need to be repainted. Joe, Gabe and I will do the living room, then we’ll decide what to do upstairs.”
“We’re gonna get the tools and the tins of paint,” Travis and Gabe chorused, heading to the cars.
When they were all set, the move could begin: they fiddled with the couch to make it pass through the door, brought boxes and furniture outside, did minimal interventions to needy pieces of furniture, dusted and cleaned everything.
It’d have been an awesome group work, if inexplicable events didn’t fuck their efforts up.
Paint cans spilling by themselves, leaving puddles of paint on the freshly cleaned floor.
Drawers and cupboard doors closing on the fingers of the unlucky guy that was working on that particular piece of furniture.
The main door closing by itself.
Pete’s friends were growing frustrated, seeing all their hard work vanishing under their eyes.
“What. The Fuck. Is going on,” Mikey finally voiced everybody’s thoughts.
“I-I really…” Pete started, but his friends’ stern and tired faces made him spill everything out.
“I think there’s a ghost.”
~°~
He was enjoying the scene from the stairs, comfortably propped against the handrail.
~°~
Mikey, Frank, Gabe, Travis and Joe were looking at Pete like he was nuts.
“A ghost,” Mikey repeated blankly.
Pete nodded silently. Silence filled the living room after his statement.
Mikey pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, “When were you going to tell us?”
“I don’t know! I thought there was some rational explication to anything that has happened in these couple of days, but with you here everything has gotten worse,” Pete whined.
“So now it’s our fault?” Gabe frowned.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that!” Pete groaned. Nobody said anything for a few pregnant minutes.
“I’m gonna call Gerard and ask him what to do,” Mikey took his cellphone and dialed his brother’s number: Gerard was famous for his passion about supernatural.
Pete nodded at him thankful and waited anxiously for the other man to pick up the damned phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey Gerard.”
“Hey Mikes, how are things?”
“Quite good, but we need your professional opinion.”
“…As illustrator or as ghost hunter in my spare time?”
“The second. It’s for Pete.”
“Put him on.”
“’llo Gerard.”
“Hi Pete. So, what’s going on?”
“I think my new house is haunted.”
“Do you know anything about the story of the house?”
“Only that it was built in the Seventies, but they didn’t tell me anything about murders or something.”
“I suggest you doing some research with your estate agency, then call me back and we’ll see what to do.”
“…Listen, Gerard…”
“Oh, yeah, you aren’t big with patience and diligence,” Gerard rolled his eyes on the other line. He often wondered what got Mikey to have a relationship with the guy, in the past.
Pete cringed, unable to retort to the cruel truth.
“Okay, okay, there’s always the good old Ouija board. If you don’t own one I think you can use a makeshift one with paper, letters written all over together with ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’ and a glass to use as planchette. But I have to warn you, it’s not totally safe either way, God only knows who you have there -maybe only a prankster, but we can’t know for sure. It’d be better if I were there, because I participated to several séances, but you know as well as me that I live almost all the way across the States…” Gerard was concerned.
“It’s okay, Gerard, thanks for your help. We’ll keep you updated,” Pete felt already a little bit relieved.
“Anytime…And be safe,” Gerard warned, then hung up.
Pete gulped, “Are you up for an impromptu séance?”
His friends immediately froze and looked at each other. They looked around, focusing on the mess in the living room, and finally accepted, not light-heartedly.
Pete tore a sheet of paper from his notepad and scribbled the alphabet on it, then ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘goodbye’ as Gerard suggested, trying to remember how an Ouija board looks. Travis bravely ventured in the kitchen and retrieved a glass from one of the boxes they filled earlier that day, while Joe and Gabe nailed boards on the windows to make the room as dark as possible and Mikey and Frank made room around the short coffee table for them to sit on the floor.
Pete fished a candle from yet another box and lightened it, putting it on the table together with the piece of paper and the glass. The guys sat on the floor around the table and threw side glances all around the room.
Pete cleared his throat, “Let’s get it over with,” he stated and lingered his fingers on the cold surface of the glass. One by one, the others copied his gesture hesitantly and threw out a long choral breath.
“Is anybody here?”
~°~
Were they really having a séance, expecting him to show himself? He snickered.
~°~
Those three words felt heavy in the thick atmosphere of the room, tension palpable and anticipation graving on the men’s shoulders.
Seconds passed and nothing happened.
“Is anybody here?” Pete repeated, tongue heavy in his mouth.
The light flickered on and off before switching off completely, startling everybody. Pete let out an undignified squeak.
“W-Who are you?” the self-proclaimed medium plied.
“P-A-T-R-I-C-K,” the glass spelled.
The men looked at each other wide eyed, excited and petrified at the same time.
“Why are you doing all these pranks?”
“M-Y-H-O-U-S-E”
“We can live together amicably, you know?” Pete attempted a chuckle and peace offer.
“NO”
Everybody tensed.
“If you have any unresolved business, we can help you,” Pete proposed. He didn’t get a reply for a full minute, before the glass moved again.
“M-U-S-I-C”
“We aren’t going anywhere with this, it’s fucking slow,” Pete whispered, earning a deserved kick from Mikey.
“T-H-A-N-K-S” the ‘board’ spelled again. Everybody giggled, even Pete.
“Sorry,” the man apologized sheepishly, mindful of what Gerard didn’t properly say but that was obvious - don’t piss the spirits off.
~°~
He hated admitting it, but his ‘roommate’ was right, they’ll never conclude a damn this way.
He wondered if the guy with the nose and lip ring was going to be a good host…
~°~
Frank sniggered, “Okay, where were we?”
Everybody at the table turned towards him. Frank looked a bit unfocused and his features were contorted in a bitterly playful grimace.
“Frank?” Mikey called.
“Oh, so that’s his name? Thank him on my behalf, later,” Frank blushed faintly, not totally visible in the candle light.
“Frank?!” Mikey was going to reach for his boyfriend, but Pete admonished, “Don’t take your fingers off the glass!”
Mikey kept looking at Frank worriedly, but did as asked.
“I’m sorry but I had to, or we’d still be here for next year’s Christmas,” Frank voiced Patrick’s words, “So, are you really sure you want to help me?”
Five heads nodded in agreement.
“Thank you very much. But first, I think I have to tell you who the hell I am,” Frank-Patrick conceded.
~°~
My name is Patrick Stump and I committed suicide at the end of January 1997, three months shy to my eighteenth birthday. I slit my wrists in my parents’ bedroom, for a more shocking discovery and to make my father pay for crushing my dreams.
I’ve always been very fond of music and craved to learn every musical instrument possible. I admit I’d never been that good of a lyricist, but the most important thing for me was the music part, so I composed a lot of melodies, inspired by my favorite musicians-
“Bowie and Prince?” Pete grinned.
“Yes,” Patrick smiled back.
I had an older brother, who was the perfect son in my father’s opinion: Kevin always did what our father wanted, had really good grades, went to Harvard to become a lawyer because our father decided so. We all were (SUCCUBI) of our father’s decision - he was the one who chose the best schools for us and planned our future careers, uncaring of our real passions and interests.
I was more of a ‘mommy-boy’, as in my mother secretly tried to avoid what happened with Kevin. For example, when she noticed my inclination towards music, she taught me to play the piano and had her hard time convincing my father to allow me to have a guitar when I got into my teen years - you know how things work, you want to play a cool instrument when you’re that age. My maternal grandparents tried to help me as well, in fact they bought me a drum kit that I was able to play only at their place.
My father eventually gave in and bought me a guitar for my fourteenth birthday, snagging me the promise to get better grades and to still have school as my priority, not “worthless music, Patrick, because you don’t want to be a worthless man, am I right?”, as he always said.
Starting from that day, I’d been scribbling chords over chords on tons of notepads, practicing the guitar and mumbling lyrics that I thought could fit instead of doing homework, standing up until late at night to catch up with them and make my father think I was totally focused on school. I was lucky Kevin was out of state for college, otherwise I’m pretty sure he’d have reported me to my father.
When it was my turn to apply for college, I already knew my fate, but dared to put my foot down and asked to attend a college where I would have been able to major in Music…I shouldn’t have. My father shouted in my face, saying that I wasn’t going anywhere strumming in some filthy bar for a few cents a show, that he was working hard to afford the best schools for his sons when he wasn’t able to attend them, that I wasn’t grateful for what he was doing for me and his efforts to assure me a steady future. He flied in my room and grabbed my guitar, but it was no use to plead him to leave me the instruments, he didn’t fall for my fake promises to become a lawyer, he was frustrated that I wasn’t like my brother.
“Son of a bitch,” Pete hissed.
I followed my father in the attic, where he locked the guitar in the black trunk in the corner and broke the keys in the locks; he then dragged me downstairs and closed me in my bedroom, claiming I wasn’t getting out until I made up my mind.
I was glad he didn’t break the guitar and the thought that I’d have been able to retrieve it, breaking the locks with my father’s tools, gave me hope. I was already planning my runaway, but I made a huge mistake: I underestimated him. My father locked his tools away and I’ve never been able to find the key, after he finally let me out.
During my forced stay in my room, I thought about finding a job to earn money enough to buy another guitar, but my father would’ve surely locked it away as well, if not broken or burnt it. I thought about running away, but he wasn’t going to give up on me easily…I was so mad at him, I wanted to make him pay.
He put his dreams in his sons, so I decided to break one of his dreams killing myself. One day, when my father was still at work and my mother went to visit a friend of her, I took one of my father’s razor blades and went in their bedroom, lied on their bed and cut my wrists. I don’t know what happened next, I just passed out for hemorrhage and I wasn’t able to see my father’s face when he saw me; I woke up something like a month later in a silent, empty house, my parents nowhere to be seen.
I’ve been stuck in this house since then, every attempt to get my guitar back was vane, so I found myself haunting this house. At first I didn’t scare the inhabitants on purpose, I was just trying to feel alive again with my music playing the piano during the night, but all those years in ghastly solitude almost drove me insane. I was blinded by my rabid retrieval of my guitar, I actually spooked them with the intention to just leave me alone with my regrets and don’t let them touch my instruments.
~°~
“I’m sorry I scared you, but whenever I tried to contact the past inhabitants to have their help they left right then and there, so I thought it’d have been the same with you and thus tried to scare you away,” Patrick apologized. A few tears were running down Frank’s face while the ghost recounted his past.
Pete, Mikey, Gabe, Travis and Joe were looking at Frank-Patrick totally upset and sad for this boy who ended his life at such a young age because he saw his dreams vanish under the father’s pressure.
Pete was the first to recover, “Travie, do you have the pincers with you?” he whispered, not wanting to break the atmosphere.
Travis nodded silently and stood up, breaking the contact with the glass, to get his tools belt from the kitchen counter. When he returned in the living room, Pete was on his feet as well, while the others ended the session -Mikey closed the ‘board’ in case some other spirit wanted in- and Frank was still possessed by Patrick.
“Let’s open that fucking trunk,” Pete stated and led the way to the attic.
The men climbed up two stair cases and reached the attic, trunk still in its place in the far end of the room. Travis approached it with the pincers and with some effort he managed to snap the locks open; Pete and Patrick were right behind him, breath caught in their throats. When Travis opened the trunk, Patrick fell on his knees and started crying, with Pete right at his side hugging him comfortingly.
The guitar had been waiting patiently for Patrick for almost fourteen years.
Patrick threw Frank’s arms around Pete and cried in his shoulder, thankful beyond words.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you…All of you,” he chocked out. Pete patted Frank’s dark locks imagining it was Patrick’s hair and whispered, “Don’t mention it.”
When Patrick finally calmed down, he carefully took his guitar from the trunk and heavy tears fell on its glossy surface.
“…Would you like to play us something?” Pete asked shyly.
Patrick looked at him like Pete just told him he won the lottery. Patrick sat on the floor and with a lapful of guitar he started strumming to remember how to play; when he was ready, he closed the eyes and Frank’s tattooed fingers ran smoothly on the strings.
Before Patrick started playing, Travis snooped in the trunk and found a photo album that showed to Pete, who sat next to him.
“Hey man, look at this.”
Pete took the album and flipped through the pages, immediately spotting a boy with different hats in most of the photos: he looked exactly like the boy of his dream.
“So this is Patrick,” he whispered, and when he looked up at Frank, his friend disappeared in front of his eyes to be substituted by a strawberry blonde boy with trucker hat and a faint aura around him. Patrick was fully concentrated but smiling, at peace with a guitar in hand: he was so talented, it was really a disgrace he had to end his life.
When Patrick finished the song and Pete blinked, Frank slumped on the floor and Patrick’s ghost was a little more corporeal. Mikey rushed at Frank’s side and tried to shake him awake.
“Don’t worry for him, he’ll recover soon,” Patrick smiled softly, then turned to Pete and Travis, “Thank you for getting my guitar back, I can finally go now.”
Travis nodded and excused himself, leaving Pete and Patrick alone.
“I know we haven’t had a real friendship, but I’m gonna miss you,” Pete said with a watery smile.
“I’m sorry I made you think you were going nuts, especially because you helped me in the end, and I’m gonna miss you too. I’m sure we’d have been friends, if…you know,” Patrick trailed off and blushed, scratching his head in embarrassment.
It was instinctive: Pete launched himself at Patrick to hug him goodbye. The surprising thing was that Patrick felt real between his arms, almost warm when he hugged Pete back.
“Goodbye, guys,” Patrick stated while silent tears rolled down his pale cheeks. His pearlish features slowly vanished in front of Pete and his friends, and finally he disappeared.
Pete stared at the spot where Patrick was standing just a moment ago with hot tears falling uncontrollably for what felt like forever. It was Mikey’s relieved gasp that made him turn.
“Frank!” everybody yelled, relieved to have their friend back.
“What happened?” Frank asked hazily.
“You…you were possessed,” Mikey explained as tactful as possible.
“I was…Patrick, where’s Patrick?” Frank sat up and looked around.
“He’s gone. He left said to thank you,” Pete smiled, unable to stop his tears though.
“Oh. Then what happened to him?”
The other five looked at each other.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Mikey suggested, “we’ll recount everything on the couch with a beer in hand.”
~°~
“So he’s gone. Are you relieved now?”
“…No.”